User blog:BobaFett2/I'd Like to Explain a Few Things
Now, don't take this too harshly. I'll doing my best to be diplomatic, but I'll probably say something that you (I'm speaking to BlueJay, as certain members take any criticism negatively) find offensive. I WILL name names, because names are important this post. I apologize prematurely for that, but do NOT delete or lock the topic just because you don't like it. Running from your problems doesn't solve them. First, I'd like to address the position of wiki administrator. Now, the purpose of this is to allow people to block/ban other users for misbehaving as well as lock pages. I would entrust this ability only to those who will best use it. From what I've seen, BrickFilmNut (and ImagineMan, assuming he's still on the team) seem like the best candidates for such a tool, whereas people who overreact at the slightest criticism (Jw and Buster come to mind) makes poor candidates as they limit open discussion. And alternative would be to give the position of administrator only to those who create something that goes directly in game - that means Blender models, code for the game, music (real soundtracks, not just messing with another song), and textures for minifigures. A merit-based administratorship. Now, you'll notice that I have repeatedly said that making minifigures is not real work. Because it isn't. It's merely assembling some pieces on LDD and applying some ready-made textures. As I've pointed out, this is something that anyone can do within minutes. It's extremely easy to make a coherent figure. It's a little more difficult to make a great one, but this is really all about equipping armor that already looks good. And then what? Now, there are three ways to make a minifigure unique. One is to create custom minifigure accessories (gear) and body parts in Blender. This is the most difficult way to make a minifigure unique, but by far the best one. Not all of your minifigures require this touch, but if you want to make your game look great, you should have at least a few like this. This type of figure made LU stand out. Alternatively, you can use LeoCAD to make custom parts. In LeoCAD, you can position parts inside of other parts, effectively creating custom parts. You can see the effect of this on http://novexisallianceonline.wikia.com/ , particularly on the Paladin and Enchanter pages. This isn't too hard to do but it makes the figures unique. The third way is to create your own textures. To make truly good textures can be a challenge, and requires time and effort, but the results are well worth it. I recommend that you do not grant favors to those who churn out minifigures from LDD, and instead encourage them to create ones using the methods I layed out above. Likewise, if you have people making LDDs, you should have someone like me http://www.mocpages.com/home.php/53136 (I don't claim to be great, but I'm better than just about everyone I've seen in one of these projects) checking quality and making sure that the LDDs are actually good - otherwise you have a situation like that in LEGO galaxy where you have some terrible models that are put in game simply because there is nobody on the team with a good aesthetic. If you want, I can quality check your minifigures and models. I can contribute some of my own too, if you wish. It's also important to remember that advertising will not be effective until late in the game. Early on, advertising brings in the individuals who wish to be a game master or moderator (a position that should be reserved for contributing members (my definition above)) and those who want to create minifigures and mediocre LDDs. Ads (like the ones you're thinking of) don't draw talented individuals to work for you. Most will ignore you. Some, like myself, will come to push you onto the right track. Some, like Doctor Underbuild (avoid him) will mock you viciously. Save the ads until you have a real game and you want people to play it. What you need to do is, once you get members who can actively create the game, display your work. Create compilations of your work - animations created by animators, slideshows of models created in Blender, minifigures with custom textures posed by animators, and videos of gameplay. THAT is how you attract developers. Once you have a playable game you can advertise any way you want - Stop motion animation, gameplay clips, trailers - whatever. Then you'll be attracting real players as well as developers interested in helping a game that has already formed Don't worry about creating content. It's easier than it might seem. At least one member of the team should be familiarizing themself with Unity. They don't even have to learn to code yet - just learn how to place things, create particle emitters using tools built into Unity, and make the cameras work for them. You will eventually need a person to script in Unity, and this will take some time for most people to learn, but a well designed Unity scene (unscripted) is enough to attract a few people who could help with this. You should aim to have at least two members learning Blender. Blender is a complicated tool and 3D modeling is complicated. It takes a lot of time and effort (just ask Allen) to make complex models (such as an accurate minifigure) but when you have one of those you'll be able to create some of the most interesting minifigures (and enemies). You should also have at least one person learn to use LeoCAD. This takes 5 minutes but will let you make things that you couldn't build in real life (eg, cheat). It can be exported to Blender (although the process isn't perfect. Mvp333 on Novexis could help you with that). Have at least two people learn to make good textures for minifigures. Paint is not a good program for this. Paint.NET is a great free program, although it's a bit limited. GIMP is fantastic and requires some time to learn, but it's far better. Inkscape (essentially a free version of Adobe Illustrator) is what I like to use, and it takes a little getting used to (due to making a different type of image - .SVGs) but is well worth it, and if you have it, use Photoshop. Get at least one composer. Composing is not easy. Mvp333 has been working at composing for months with Noteflight and he's gotten pretty good. You'll need to pay some money for a mediocre program, like Crescendo (premium Noteflight) if you want anything that sounds remotely good, and it will take a more expensive program to create a truly good soundtrack. It's probably a better idea to search the web for experienced composers (once you have stuff in Unity and Blender, that is). I don't recommend making it a goal for any member to invest a significant amount of time and money into composing unless they have a non-game related interest in it. The easiest of these things to do is to learn LeoCAD. There is no real excuse for not learning that one. It's also fairly easy to learn to use the Unity program (not counting scripting), so you should take a look at that immediately. Make it a short term goal for one or two people on the team to learn either UnityScript or C# (in the context of Unity). Likewise, make it a short term goal for at least two people to learn the ins and outs of Blender. Don't worry if you aren't any good at it immediately - it takes months to become decent at it (at least for most people) but it's well worth it. Blender is also the program that you will use to animate models. Have some members learn to make custom textures. There is a lot of trial an error involved, and you'll need someone to create a minifigure (and a UV map of it) in Blender first, but afterward, you'll need people making textures. Now, this is all easier said than done. I don't claim to be the success story that BUILD is - our team stagnated due to our reliance on a coder who was not even close to adequate and a brilliant one who wasn't familiar with Unity. I highly recommend that you take my advice. I'm not trying to dethrone Jw or Buster here - merely point out that their position is based on circumstance alone and is unmerited. Encourage everyone to pursue one of these paths, or more than one. In particular, ImagineMan, if you read this, I recommend that you learn UnityScript. It's similar to JavaScript (which is not Java in any way, shape, or form) and is essential to using Unity (unless you use another language). Category:Blog posts